History is about longing and belonging. It is about the need for permanence and the perception of continuity. It concerns the atavistic desire to find deep sources of identity. We live again in the twelfth or in the fifteenth century, finding echoes and resonances of our own time; we may recognise that some things, such as piety and passion, are never lost; we may also conclude that the great general drama of the human spirit is ever fresh and ever renewed. That is why some of the greatest writers have preferred to see English history as dramatic or epic poetry, which is just as capable of expressing the power and movement of history as any prose narrative; it is a form of singing around a fire. Peter Ackroyd
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History is about longing and belonging. Historians have a tendency to view the past in terms of comparisons to its own time. When we do that, we often miss the point. The reason that history is interesting is not because it tells us about the same things in different times, but because it tells us about something timeless.

The English Reformation fits in with a span of time that was characterized by religious upheaval, but it also reveals something about humanity’s relationship with God. It is not simply a movement against some other “ism” or another form of social structure, but a movement which expresses what it means to be human. This is why some of the greatest writers have preferred to see English history as dramatic or epic poetry, which is just as capable of expressing the power and movement of history as any prose narrative; it is a form of singing around a fire.

Source: Foundation: The History Of England From Its Earliest Beginnings To The Tudors

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